


Schedule

by AmyNChan



Series: Miraculous Angst [9]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Dealing with It, Stalker, Stalking, those are trigger warnings right?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 12:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10360518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyNChan/pseuds/AmyNChan
Summary: Chat Noir leapt from building to building, his Lady having left for the night.  Usually, patrols made him feel freer, more happy.But he wasn’t.  He was pensive.  He was looking over his shoulder.  He was wary.





	

Chat Noir leapt from building to building, his Lady having left for the night.  Usually, patrols made him feel freer, more happy.

But he wasn’t.  He was pensive.  He was looking over his shoulder.  He was wary.

He circled his house three times during patrol, almost afraid every time.  About a week ago he would have told himself he was being silly, that none of his friends would do something like watch his house in the middle of the night.  It was absurd.

Or it would have been, if he hadn’t been to Marinette’s.

Their friendship as superhero and civilian had begun rather oddly, with him crashing on her rooftop and her making sure he was okay.  That had been months ago.  Their comradery had grown since then, leading to midnight talks and snacks.  They had joked and played and teased each other.  It was a good, honest friendship that he was grateful to have.

Until he had gone into her room.

The posters had creeped him out a little bit—did she really need so many?  She saw him at school—but it was something he could have dealt with.  He had brought it up and was surprised with how quickly she had asked him not to say anything about them.  Her face had lit up like Ladybug’s suit and she had shaken her head and would not say a thing about them other than unintelligible squeaks.

He had tried to forget they were there and continue joking.  She had fallen into their banter easily enough and all had been well with the world.  Then they had gotten into a debate—what it was he couldn’t tell you now—where she had to look something up on her computer.  That wallpaper seared into his eyes the instant it came onto the screen.  He would not have been perturbed if it was a picture of the group of them, or maybe just him and her despite them not being terribly close.  No, her wallpaper was a collage of professionally taken photos from his shoots, stitched together with looping hearts.  It honestly made him feel a little sick.

He had tried to ask her about it, but she clammed up again, this time getting angry.  He had backed up with his hands in the air to say he meant no harm, but this was a conversation he was going to pursue.  The posters and the wallpaper were bordering on creepy, especially when they concerned someone she could easily talk to during the day.

And then came the last straw.

He had stood up, talked while waving his hands around to try and get her to see how borderline creepy it was, and had knocked it down.

_It_.  That schedule.

It had every general activity from January to June.  All of his photoshoots, basketball practices, fencing meetings, even his vacation time.  Even lunch meetings his father required him to go to!

He had never spoken to Marinette about any of it.  This was all information she had dug up on her own, behind his back, without his knowledge or consent.

He had asked, as Chat of course, for an explanation, and she had the _nerve_ to say that she simply liked to know where he was.  He had tried to explain—as calmly as he could—that what she was doing was wrong on all levels.  Treating a friend like that, like a commodity or a personal pet, was wrong.  Going through their personal information to get their schedule was wrong.  And definitely getting that information behind someone else’s back was _wrong_.

And then she’d had the nerve to get angry.  As though he were in the wrong.

The fight lasted fifteen minutes, with neither side backing down.  She kept insisting she wasn’t doing anything wrong, that it wasn’t a crime to keep tabs on people.  He kept insisting that yes, it was, and that she could literally be incarcerated for her stalking.  She told him she wasn’t a stalker.  He could only point to the schedule and release some of the most biting words he believed he could have said at that point.

“You have his _schedule_ on your wall, Marinette!  And I bet you didn’t ask for it either!  Honestly, do you even really _know_ him?!  Can you even call yourself his friend?”

Chat had thought, in the moment, that the words had hurt him more than her.  He, as Adrien, had precious few friends.  And the thought that someone he had counted among them didn’t even _know_ him… He’d had to leave.  Marinette had yelled at him, but he could not have cared in that moment.  He had left, gone straight home, and thrown up.

In the week since, Adrien had been more nervous, more skittish, around Marinette.  He believed that Alya chalked it up to a crush, but he was thankful that Nino seemed to know better.  When he told his friend of what he had learned—citing that Chat Noir himself had come over to inform him to at least be careful—Nino had proven himself to be the ultimate best bro in the history of best bros.

“I knew she liked you, but I didn’t know it went _that far_ ,” said the DJ, lifting his hat with a furrowed expression.  “How do you want to do this?”

Adrien could have hugged him.  And did.  Repeatedly.  The boys had contrived a plan which involved Adrien talking to his father about changing some things in his schedule—he really didn’t like Marinette having tabs on him all the time—and Nino talking to Alya about possibly talking some sense into her friend, or at the very least discouraging her from making another schedule.

It wasn’t ideal, but they felt it was the best shot they had.

Adrien had spoken with his father via tablet Wednesday morning about the fact that he had encountered a stalker in public and wanted to change his schedule slightly to have some more privacy.  By that evening he was informed that he had been assigned to a different basketball team which met Thursday evenings instead of Wednesday.  Monsieur D’Argencourt had agreed to move his personal fencing sessions from Fridays to Tuesday evenings.  Chinese had gone from Monday to Friday.  And within two days Nathalie had informed him of the many changes in his photoshoot schedule.

Adrien had almost cried.  It was far beyond what he had expected, given that some of those shoots were very time-specific and had a deadline.  Changing those, Adrien knew, could not have been easy, yet his father had done it for him.

Tonight, he entered his room and hastily locked the window behind him.  He released his transformation, allowing his kwami to rest.  Said kwami did not take the hint and only gazed at his charge with open concern.

Were the rings under his eyes that bad?

“You doing okay, kid?” asked Plagg.

Adrien choked out a laugh, fatigue weighing it down.  “No.  No I’m not.”

Silence seeped into every corner of the room after his admission.  He knew he didn’t feel okay about any of this. He knew _why_ he didn’t feel okay.

He also knew why there were tears running down his face.

“Kid…”

“Is it so wrong of me…” interrupted Adrien, hiccupping on his words.  “Am I a bad person for being so scared?  Am I overreacting?  What—”

“Kid, _no_ ,” said Plagg, and the conviction in his voice caused the boy to stop.  He bit his lip, hoping that maybe if he stopped saying these things, it would help.  But it didn’t.  “Look at me.”

Adrien couldn’t.  He just wanted to look out through his window, somehow vigilant against a world he wished would just stop looking at him for a moment.  Become invisible.  He was used to being looked at by strangers. He was used to the idea that people loved his modeling more than him as a person.  He wasn’t used to that behavior from people he had decided to trust.  And she was out there, and he had no idea if she was going to pick this back up again or not.  The almost silent threat hung above his head and made it hard to breathe.

“Adrien, look at me,” insisted Plagg.  When Adrien didn’t, the kwami zipped in his line of sight, right in front of his nose.  Startled, Adrien took a step back.  Plagg didn’t follow, but he had gotten what he needed.  For now, Adrien was focusing on him instead of the dark unknown.

“It’s not wrong of you to want your privacy.  Heck, I encourage it because you’re kind of a superhero.  Secrecy is a big deal—” Adrien chuckled at that.  “—and it’s not wrong to get freaked out by this.  She didn’t have any right to do that.  Following you and pinning your schedule to a wall?  That wasn’t okay.  That’s your privacy and your schedule, and it’s a wonder she hasn’t figured out you’re Chat Noir yet.  Just because some other humans happen to like your face doesn’t mean you lose your right to either of those things, and it doesn’t make you a bad person to get upset when they’re taken from you.”

Plagg glared at him until he nodded.  Satisfied, the kwami zipped off in the direction of the bed.  “Come on.  You’ve got more people who like your face tomorrow and I know you don’t like all that makeup on your eyes.”

Adrien let loose a watery chuckle before following Plagg.  As emotionally and physically draining as the past week had been—cutting off Marinette and constantly looking over his shoulder in fear that she would be gathering more information on him—sleep sounded like a really good option.  Adrien crawled into bed without changing, wrapping himself tightly in his blanket.

“Plagg?”

“What is it?”

“Thanks.”

The god of destruction didn’t return with a snarky remark, though Adrien could practically hear it.  Nor did he return with some sentimental words of advice, as he had already given them.  What he did respond with was making himself a little nest in Adrien’s messy hair and burrowing himself inside, an immediate purr coming from his tiny body.

With that lullaby, Adrien had no problems falling asleep.

* * *

 

Adrien and Nino sat together during lunch inside a local café which was out of the way.  Lunch was almost over and the boys had enjoyed a nice meal together, laughing and joking the entire way.  To be honest?  It was really refreshing.

“…and so that’s how I figured out what a cassette tape was.  You can imagine how mad my grandpa was,” laughed Nino.  Adrien joined in, and Nino smiled.  This was the first time he had heard his bro laugh in about a month.

“That reminds me of the time I got into my mom’s collection,” said Adrien.  “Turns out there’s this American band that—”

The doorbell to the café rang and Adrien impulsively checked it, halting midway through his story.  Nino knew that his bro was still jumpy after the stress of the last month, but even he didn’t really know what to do with the person who just entered their café.

Before Adrien could say or do anything, Nino made a decision, shot up, and hurried across the café, taking Alya back outside.  He sucked in a breath to question her but was cut off.

“Marinette isn’t with me and doesn’t know where I am, Nino,” started Alya.  “I know you’re worried about him, but this—”

“If you finish that sentence with anything other than ‘this is a perfectly acceptable reaction’, we may have a couple issues,” said Nino, a frown on his face.  He released a weary sigh.  “Look, Alya, what Marinette did wasn’t cool.  I know she’s your best friend and all, but Adrien doesn’t have a lot of people he can really trust, and when one of them goes behind his back like she did?  It’s not cool.”

“I _know_ that, Nino,” insisted Alya.  “Really, I do.  Marinette’s in the wrong here, I get that.  But she’s been tearing herself up over it for the past month and—”

“And what?” pressed Nino.  “We’re supposed to feel bad that she’s upset because she can’t undermine his rights as a human being anymore?”

“I never said that.”

“Then what?  What she did was against the _law_ , Alya.  She could have gone to _jail_ if Adrien had decided to sue or something.  It’s a serious invasion of privacy.”

“You don’t know that—”

“Actually, I do.  I looked it up,” said Nino.  He took a deep breath.  It wouldn’t be good for Adrien or Marinette or Alya or even himself if he got angry now.  “Look, I’ve known Marinette for a long time and, yeah, I’m upset that she’s upset, but not enough to put Adrien back in the same room as her.  He’s gotten _panic attacks_ over this.”

“I thought those went away,” argued Alya, her brows furrowed.  “You’re telling me there’s been  even more?”

“Only about every time he realizes Marinette’s trying to talk to him,” said Nino, folding his arms.  “I know you guys are conspiring to make him at least listen to her half the time, but have you thought about how this is affecting him?  He’s not doing this to be cruel, he’s doing it because he trusted her as a friend and he thinks she abused that trust.  And he can’t deal with that.”

“But what about Marinette?” asked Alya.  “She’s been trying to apologize for weeks now and he won’t even let her try to make this right.  It’s not fair!”

“Yeah, well neither is her getting his schedule and stalking him,” returned Nino.  “Look, she can feel bad all she wants, but this isn’t about her or how she feels anymore, it’s about Adrien.  Adrien will hear her apology when he’s good and ready to, and that just means she’ll have to wait until she doesn’t trigger his panic attacks anymore.”

Nino and Alya glared at each other, both weary and frustrated.  Frustrated with the situation, frustrated that they couldn’t solve it more quickly, frustrated that their respective best friends were unhappy.  Just frustrated.

“You know she burned the schedule last week,” murmured Alya.

“Yeah.”

“And she changed her wallpaper.”

“Yeah.”

“And the posters are gone.”

“I know.”

“She’s trying to make this right, Nino.”  He knew she was pleading with him.  In as stubborn a way as she could, she was begging him to help her help Marinette make this right.  “She’s told me that she’ll leave him alone forever if he wants her to if she can only apologize.”

“Then she can wait until he’s ready to hear it,” said Nino, a long and weary sigh escaping him.  “It won’t do him any good if he can’t hear her, and then who will the apology be for?”

Alya bit her lip, silently conceding his point even though it hurt her to accept.  Nino felt his heart hurt as well, but he knew it was the truth.  Marinette had done something horrible, and there was no way to forgive her until Adrien made that choice of his own free will.  Until then, it was better to keep them apart.

“I hate this…” whispered Alya.

“I know…” returned Nino, just as softly.  “But we can’t rush them or force them to do anything they don’t want to.  If Marinette’s really sorry and if she really wants to apologize, then she needs to wait until he’s ready to hear it.  She needs to respect him at least that much.  Otherwise it doesn’t mean anything.”

Alya nodded and Nino knew he wouldn’t have to push anymore on the topic.  He hated being pitted against the girls, especially since they had spent half the schoolyear getting closer and closer, but this was a big deal and they needed to find a way to work through it.  Until then, they were all at a standstill.

Alya peeked inside the café, then looked back at Nino.  “Is he going to be okay?”

Nino exhaled, not entirely sure how to answer.  He went with as honestly as possible.  “I hope so.”

The two of them stood in silence for a few moments longer before parting ways.  Alya left to tell Marinette what Nino said and Nino returned to Adrien in order to see if he was okay.

Adrien didn’t laugh for the rest of lunch.

* * *

 

Chat Noir stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower breathing deeply.  He couldn’t be seen up here, not from the ground and not against the night sky.  He was invisible.

Which, he supposed, was what he wanted.  Especially after overhearing Nino and Alya’s argument from a few days prior.  He wanted all the drama to stop, and he wanted to feel safe again.  He wanted to stop being the dividing factor between his friends.

He knew he would probably _need_ to confront Marinette at some point, but the thought of it was currently daunting.  He didn’t want to hear her try to rationalize it away like she had tried to do with Chat Noir.  He didn’t want to hear her justify her actions or try to excuse them somehow in an apology.  He didn’t want excuses, he wanted to be safe.  He wanted to be sure of his privacy again.

_“…and it’s a wonder she hasn’t figured out you’re Chat Noir yet…”_

An idea formed at the back of his mind.

She had no idea Adrien and Chat Noir were the same people.

She wouldn’t try to force her apology for Adrien down Chat Noir’s throat.

And technically, it was Chat Noir who told Adrien about the stalking.

If there was anyone she would show her real feelings about the subject to, it would be Chat Noir.

She would either hate him or…  well, she would probably still hate him, but at least she would be honest about the whole situation.

Maybe he shouldn’t go.  It’s kind of a stupid idea.

But if he went, he could at least see if she was genuine about that apology.  He could know if she had really gotten rid of it all…

That thought was enough to propel him off the Eiffel tower and towards a certain bakery he had not visited that fateful visit.  The night was his camouflage and escape, and knowing that he was going to meet her head on, with some sort of mental protection—‘Chat Noir’ and ‘Adrien’ were two separate people to her—gave him a bit of the security he had been looking for.

This time, he was in control of the situation.  He was going to face the problem head-on and hopefully resolve at least a bit of it.  If not for his own sanity, then for Nino’s and Alya’s, who both cared for them even through all of this.

Chat Noir landed on Marinette’s balcony, but his hand stopped when he reached to tap the glass on autopilot.

_What am I doing?_

_Is this really the right thing to do?_

_Will I be okay?_

Questions like this racked his brain, but before he could back out, the doorway opened and he scrambled backwards.  Before he could prepare, her head popped out of the entryway for a moment.

They stared at each other for a moment.  He knew he felt apprehensive about it all, but Marinette?  He couldn’t tell what was on her mind.  All he knew was that if he didn’t keep up the eye contact, he wasn’t sure what would happen.  So he kept it up.

Carefully, he watched as Marinette emerged from the bedroom.  Despite the late hour, he noticed how she still had the clothes from school on.  It was a silly thing, but he wondered why she hadn’t changed into pajamas already.  It had to be at least eleven.

“You didn’t come back,” said Marinette.  It wasn’t what he was expecting.

“I’ve been busy,” retorted Chat.  It wasn’t really a lie, but he had always been busy.  It’s just that lately, he allowed his now rearranged schedule to obscure any time he used to spend with her.  Marinette only nodded.

“I see…”

The air was silent and suffocating between them.  Chat Noir frowned, his ears flattening and nose scrunching in suspicion.  Marinette was avoiding eye contact, rubbing her arm against the chill of the night.

After a long moment, Chat couldn’t really take it anymore.  “Aren’t you going to yell at me?”

“What?”  For the first time that night, Marinette looked him dead in the eye.  “Yell at—oh, for telling Adrien?”

Chat nodded.  It only made sense, especially if she came to the conclusion herself.  She had to be mad at him as Chat for telling him as Adrien about her obsession.  Because to her, that had to have been what started this month of awkwardness.

At least, that’s what he figured.  So he was surprised when she shook her head.

“I mean, I wanted to at first, you know?  I think I spent the first week just so angry that you had to go and do that and I blamed you for everything and I was really mad at you and I just wanted to make him feel better and then…  then I had to watch him have a panic attack.”

Chat remembered the incident.  He had successfully managed to avoid Marinette and focus on the class, but afterwards she had tried to talk to him.  One minute he was desperately signaling for Nino’s help, the next he was in the bathroom with Nino trying to get him to breathe.  The class had asked about it afterwards, but Nino had somehow managed to get them to stop asking.

“Chat…  it was _terrifying_.  He couldn’t talk or breathe, he could barely walk straight!  But it was worse to know that _I_ did it to him.  I thought that it wasn’t a big deal, but it was to him.  You were right.  All that stuff ended up hurting him in the end, and it was all my fault.”

Marinette groaned and slumped into her chair, though Chat made no move to approach her.  He was still cautiously curious about how she had handled everything.  Having her explain it to an outsider…  it somehow made the interaction seem more genuine.

“So, what, you just saw the light like that?” asked Chat.  “Because last time I was here, you were pretty intent on telling me just how wrong I was.”

“No, that was the start, though,” admitted Marinette.  “After that, I was less mad at you and more mad at me.  I took down the posters and changed the wallpaper out of spite more than anything else.  And then I realized I was changing my habits for the wrong reasons.”

“The wrong reasons.”  They both knew it was a question disguised as a statement.  Marinette nodded.

“If I got over the spite, who’s to say I won’t do it again?  Convince myself it’s okay again?  I couldn’t let it go because I was angry with you, but because Adrien is a good person who doesn’t deserve all of this anxiety.”

For some reason, listening to her speak about Adrien with such respect and care made his stomach churn.  But she seemed adequately disgusted with her actions, so he nodded and hoped she would go on without his prodding.

“After that, I talked to my parents about it and asked what I could do,” continued Marinette.  “Maman said apologizing and talking it out would be best, but Papa told me that I needed to wait until he’s ready to hear it and be okay with the fact if we never get over this.  I’ve tried for weeks now to try and let him know that I’m ready to apologize, but Alya was only able to try and get the message to him a couple of days ago, and I’m _still_ not sure if he knows.”

Chat stood for a moment on the other side of the balcony, pondering all she had told him.  She had gotten rid of the posters and wallpaper, and he knew Alya said she got rid of the schedule, but just to be sure…

“What happened to the pull-down?” he asked.  It was, after all, the start of all this.

“I got some information off of it and then burned it,” said Marinette, her head still dropped into the palms of her hands.  Chat could feel his frown deepen before she continued.  “I stuffed it in an envelope and I plan on giving it to Adrien as soon as he’ll hear me out.  Or his bodyguard.  Or whoever’s in charge of his schedule.  They at least deserve to know where the leaks are.”

All of the wind was sufficiently knocked from Chat’s gut.  That was a twist he was not expecting.  “Leaks?”

“Yeah,” sighed Marinette.  “How I got the information in the first place.  The appointments, the schedule, the basketball games and fencing…  all of it.  I don’t know if it’ll help, but if they know how I got a hold of it, maybe they can stop everyone else from stalking him, too.  I don’t even know if that makes sense or if it’ll help, but—”

“But you’re hoping it’ll help you be his friend again?” asked Chat, unsure how he felt with the entire thing.  On the one hand, it was much more than he had expected of Marinette.  On the other, he wasn’t sure he wanted it if she was only giving it to be his friend.

“No.  He can decide that one on his own, and if he doesn’t want to be my friend anymore, then I’ll have to respect that and just have to get by or something.  I broke his trust and because of me he’s so anxious about everything and it’s making him miserable and I never wanted that,” said Marinette.  “No, I’m just hoping that plugging these up will help him feel a bit more at ease.  He deserves that much.”

“You’ve thought this through, haven’t you?” asked Chat.  Marinette nodded.  After a moment, he looked around the balcony.  “Well, it’s late and this cat’s gotta scat, so—”

“Wait, Chat!” blurted Marinette.  He snapped his attention back to her to find that she had already stood and was holding out an envelope.

_It couldn’t be…_

“Adrien hasn’t been talking to me, as you can tell, and that’s fine, but since he won’t, could you get this to him?  He doesn’t have to talk to me this way and he can work on feeling better and my friend and I will leave him alone and you let him know about this in the first place so he’ll probably listen to you and…  just…  please?”

He glanced at the envelope and reached out for it.  His claws wrapped around the white paper and he pushed it back towards Marinette.

“You should give it to him personally, Marinette,” said Chat.  “I’ll let him know you want to talk to him tomorrow, but it’s up to you to apologize and get this to him.  Do you understand?”

He could tell she wanted to argue, but she didn’t.  Instead, she nodded and he released the envelope.  Marinette slipped the envelope into a concealed pocket in her jacket and he readied his baton.

“Chat?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.  For everything.”

Chat looked at her for a moment.  He saw honesty and sincerity in her eyes.  And a fiery determination he had not seen in a long time, not even in school.  It was a sort of look he couldn’t answer.

So he simply nodded and ran off into the night.

* * *

 

“Are you sure about this, dude?” asked Nino.  Adrien had texted him in the morning and his best friend had met him out by the stairs.  “I get that he’s a superhero and awesome and stuff, but you don’t have to meet with her if you don’t want to.”

“He said she had something important to tell me,” returned Adrien.  “I just don’t want to do it on my own.  So…”

“Okay, I won’t say anything,” said Nino, his hands up.  He then pointed to Adrien.  “But if you’re uncomfortable we can leave whenever, okay?”

“Okay,” said Adrien, smiling.  He had an amazingly patient best friend who he was grateful for.  “I’m sorry, though.  This must be tough on you and Alya.”

“Dude, if that’s the reason you’re talking to Marinette, we’re gonna walk straight into that classroom and not look back,” warned Nino.  After a moment, a gentle smile broke out.  “And I know Alya would probably say the same.  She’s stubborn, but she wouldn’t want you forcing yourself into something you’re not ready for because of us either.”

“You got that right,” said a voice from in front of them.  Nino and Adrien looked up to see only Alya standing before them.  No Marinette.

“Alya—”

“Look, sunshine boy,” started the brunette reporter.  “Nino and I will be fine.  It’s been a month and we don’t hate each other yet, so I think it’s safe to say we’re good.  What you need to focus on is whether or not you’re ready to talk to her.  If not, we can go.  If you are, then we can get started.  No harm no foul.”

Adrien took a slight moment to thank whatever little luck he possessed that he had friends who were willing to sacrifice so much for him, even when it was him who was causing them so much trouble.  He took a deep breath and smiled at the two of them.  “I’m ready to hear her out.”

“Okay, I’ll go get her,” said Alya before she turned and walked to the side of the school.

In the moments she had left, Adrien turned to Nino, who offered up a fist.  Adrien gratefully bumped it.

It didn’t take long for Alya to come back out from behind the school wall with Marinette in tow.  The girl seemed to be struggling not to trip and walked in an almost robotic fashion.  Adrien watched her with bated breath, knowing that this was something he had chosen to do.  He had chosen to hear her out (as Adrien) and he would do it.

All too soon, his black haired classmate stood before him.  Her eyes were downcast and she seemed to struggle to keep her arms at her sides.

“Look, Adrien—”

Marinette took a breath to continue, then coughed.

“Look, I— um…”

Suddenly, the girl exhaled sharply and brought her chin up to look him in the eye.  The action was so abrupt it startled him backwards a bit.  What surprised him further was that Marinette actually took a step away.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, I just—” Marinette took another breath, more gentle this time, but did not break eye contact.  “Listen, what I did was wrong.  I shouldn’t have gone to those lengths to try to ‘get to know you’, but I did.  I should have tried harder to talk to you like a normal human being and I made you feel like anything but.  In almost the worst possible way.  I invaded your privacy and I made you uncomfortable and I can never apologize enough.  There isn’t any excuse for what I did, and I’m so, so sorry that I did it.”

Adrien was surprised at how her words seemed to lift a bit of the tension from his shoulders.  Things weren’t fixed, not by a long shot, but this was a start.

“Thank you,” said the blond student.  A beat of relatively eased silence passed, allowing Adrien the deepest breath he had taken since this entire ordeal began.  She was still earnest and sincere.  That fact made it easier to believe she really would change.  She reached into her jacket.

“Um…  also…  this, well, it’s kind of embarrassing, but these are all the sites I could remember looking into when…  I mean, I don’t know if it’ll help, but maybe if you give these to your father or schedule manager or whoever…  I mean…”

Seemingly aware that she was dissolving into a ramble, she held the white envelope to him.  He knew what it was, and he knew that she wasn’t expecting anything out of it, but the fact that she went through and gave it to him still meant something to him.  It meant she was honestly going to try to be better.

Adrien opened the envelope and peered inside.  There were a few pages worth of nothing but websites and subwebsites and domain names.  There wasn’t any explanation, no excuse for her behavior.  Nothing except what she promised would be inside.

Adrien glanced up from the list to see Marinette had moved her eyes back to the ground, her shoulders finally slumped from their robotic form from earlier.

“Thank you, Marinette,” said Adrien, holding up the envelope.  “I’ll pass these onto Nathalie.”

“You’re welcome,” returned Marinette.  A beat passed.  “Well…  school.  Gotta go.  Yup.”

And with that, Marinette hurried out of his sight and up the stairs, leaving the three of them behind.  Adrien slid the papers back into the envelope and stood.

“You know,” said Alya.  “If you ever want to talk to us again, you have our numbers.”

“I know,” said Adrien.  “Thanks.”

Alya only nodded before she raced off after her friend.  Adrien turned to Nino, who looked impressed.

“What?”

“Nothing, man.  You handled that really well.”

Adrien chuckled.  “I think part of me is kind of in shock.”

Nino hummed sagely, his brown eyes surveying his best friend for a moment.  “Are you gonna be okay?”

Adrien smiled, his fingers curling on the envelope.  With this, he could start damage control.  With Marinette’s apology, maybe he could one day form a real friendship with her.  And with the friends he already counted, Nino, Plagg, and Alya, he knew he could tackle the world in due time.

All in due time.

“I will be,” the blond smiled as he and his best friend climbed the stairs to class.

He would be.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly? I like the format of Maui's apology, so that's what Marinette's got. Admission->Owning up to it->Apology Simple as that.
> 
> Also, stalking isn't harmless. It's not cute or funny. It can cause serious repercussions. You wanna know someone? Talk to them. If you can't? If you can't email, text, or message them? Then it's not meant to be. But don't stalk them. Especially not to Marinette's extent. When you think of it objectively, it's really creepy.
> 
> Also, yeah, no LB in this one. X'D I know it's horrible of me to do, but I couldn't get her in there. Mah bad. X'D


End file.
